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National League Non-Tenders: 11/18/22

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The deadline to tender contract to arbitration-eligible players is tonight at 7:00pm Central. Here’s a rundown of the players on National League teams that have been non-tendered today. This post will be updated as more decisions are revealed. All players non-tendered go directly to free agency

MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected salaries for all arb-eligible players last month.

Later Updates

  • The Reds have non-tendered righty Daniel Duarte and minor league outfielder Allan Cerda, taking both off the 40-man roster. Neither had been eligible for arbitration, but Cincinnati will send both into free agency without having to place either on waivers. Duarte made three relief appearances this year, his first as a big leaguer. Cerda, 23 next month, has yet to reach the majors. He hit .198/.350/.401 in 257 plate appearances in Double-A. Cincinnati also announced that six players designated for assignment earlier this week — Aristides Aquino, Jared Solomon, Kyle Dowdy, Derek Law, Art Warren and Jeff Hoffman — were all let go. Both Duarte and Cerda have already agreed to re-sign with Cincinnati on minor league deals, reports Mark Sheldon of MLB.com (Twitter link).

Earlier Moves

  • The Braves freed a pair of 40-man roster spots by non-tendering minor league pitchers Brooks Wilson and Alan Rangel. Rangel spent most of this past season in Double-A, while Wilson didn’t pitch in 2022. Atlanta also announced that three players non-tendered earlier this week — Guillermo Heredia, Jackson Stephens and Silvino Bracho — have been let go.
  • The Giants have non-tendered relievers Mauricio Llovera and Alex Young and infielder Donovan Walton, clearing three spots on the 40-man roster. Walton was acquired from the Mariners midseason and hit .158/.179/.303 in 24 games with San Francisco. Young made 24 appearances after his contract was purchased from the Guardians. Llovera pitched 17 times after signing a minor league deal last offseason. Additionally San Francisco non-tendered seven players who’d been designated for assignment earlier this week: Drew Strotman, Meibrys Viloria, Colton Welker, Jarlin Garcia, Dom Nunez, Sam Delaplane and Jason Vosler.
  • The Pirates non-tendered lefty Manny Banuelos and catcher Tyler Heineman. Both had been designated for assignment earlier this week.
  • The Diamondbacks non-tendered righty Reyes Moronta, the team announced. The reliever posted a 4.50 ERA in 17 outings with the Snakes after being claimed off waivers from the Dodgers.
  • The Padres announced they’ve cut loose catcher Jorge Alfaro and righty Efrain Contreras. Alfaro had been projected at a $3.6MM salary this season, a hefty amount after a .246/.285/.383 season. Contreras hasn’t pitched in the majors; he had a tough year in High-A and loses his 40-man spot spot as a result.
  • The Cubs have non-tendered center fielder Rafael Ortega, as well as minor league pitchers Brailyn Marquez and Alexander Vizcaino. Ortega has seen a decent amount of action the last two years and had a respectable .241/.331/.358 line through 371 plate appearances this past season. Nevertheless, the Cubs opted against a salary in the $1.7MM range for next year. Marquez has been a top pitching prospect but has battled injury issues for the past few years. Vizcaino was part of the Anthony Rizzo trade with the Yankees but didn’t pitch in the minors this year.
  • The Nationals non-tendered righty Tommy Romero. He’d been designated for assignment earlier this week. Washington confirmed the previously-reported decisions to part with Luke Voit and Erick Fedde.
  • The Brewers cut loose right-handers Trevor Gott, Jandel Gustave and Luis Perdomo. All three were part of Milwaukee’s middle innings mix, with Gustave’s 45 appearances the most among that group. Gott had a 4.15 ERA over 45 2/3 innings after signing a free agent deal last offseason.
  • The Rockies non-tendered infielder/outfielder Garrett Hampson, the club announced. The 28-year-old had been projected for a $2.1MM salary. A speedster with the ability to play anywhere up the middle, Hampson just hasn’t hit at the big league level. He’s coming off a .211/.287/.307 showing through 226 plate appearances.
  • The Mets announced they’ve non-tendered Sean Reid-Foley and confirmed they’re letting go of Dominic Smith, who’s non-tender was previously reported. This year, Reid-Foley made seven MLB appearances, tossing 10 innings of relief.
  • The Dodgers have non-tendered infielder Edwin Rios and utilityman Luke Williams, per a club announcement. Los Angeles also confirmed the previously reported non-tender of former MVP Cody Bellinger. Rios has shown some offensive promise in the past and owns a .212/.299/.492 line through 112 big league games. He missed a good chunk of this past season with a hamstring strain. Williams was claimed off waivers from the Marlins recently; the Dodgers could look to bring him back on a minor league deal.

Pirates Announce Several Roster Moves

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In advance of the Rule 5 draft deadline, the Pirates have announced they’ve selected the contracts of Endy Rodriguez, Mike Burrows, Colin Selby and Jared Triolo to their 40-man roster. In corresponding moves, Tyler Heineman, Jeremy Beasley, Manny Banuelos and Junior Fernandez have all been designated for assignment. Their 40-man roster remains full.

Pittsburgh acquired Rodriguez from the Mets as part of the three-team trade centered around Joe Musgrove heading to San Diego. He’s powered through the minor leagues this past year, making it all the way to Triple-A by season’s end. Across three levels, he hit .323/.407/.590 with 25 home runs. He appeared mostly at catcher, but also logged some time in the corner outfield, and at first and second base in 2022. The 22-year-old was ranked in the top-100 prospects in the game by Baseball America and MLB Pipeline, and given the Bucs’ lack of catching options on the major league depth chart, there appears a strong chance he makes it to the big leagues sometime in 2023.

Burrows landed fifth in Baseball America’s mid-season ranking of the Pittsburgh’s prospects. An eleventh round pick in 2018, Burrows spent half the year at Double-A before being promoted to Triple-A in June. In 12 starts at Double-A, Burrows had a 2.94 ERA, striking out batters 32.4% of the time and walking them 8.9% of the time. A big drop in strikeouts at Triple-A (down to 23.3%) largely accounted for his ERA spiking to 5.31 after his promotion, although his opponents BABIP also jumped about 40 points. Nonetheless, a couple of strong months at Triple-A to begin 2023 and it won’t be long before the 23-year-old finds his way to Pittsburgh.

Selby was a 16th round pick in 2018, and began his career as a starter before the Pirates shifted him to the bullpen last year. While the results weren’t particularly encouraging initially, he’s had a strong 2022 campaign at Double-A and made it to Triple-A briefly at the end of the season. In 32 2/3 innings at Double-A, Selby had a 29.7% strikeout rate against a 10.1% walk rate on the way to a 2.20 ERA. He only threw three innings at Triple-A, but should start there next season and could be a depth option for Pittsburgh’s bullpen next summer.

Triolo was picked up in the third round of the 2019 draft, and spent the entire 2022 campaign at Double-A. He hit a solid .282/.375/419, and as the line would suggest, posted a strong walk rate of 12.7% against a 17.6% strikeout rate. He’s predominantly a third baseman, but logged time at shortstop and center field in 2022. Given the presence of Ke’Bryan Hayes at third for the foreseeable future in Pittsburgh, it’s possible Triolo has a future as a utility man.

On the DFA side of things, only Heineman and Banuelos saw any meaningful time in the big leagues. Heineman appeared in 52 games at catcher, batting .211/.277/.254, while Banuelos threw 32 2/3 innings of 4.96 ERA ball after coming across from the Yankees mid-season. Fernandez only threw 3 1/3 innings for the Pirates, and Beasley only threw at their Triple-A affiliate.

Pirates Outright Austin Brice

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July 11: Brice has cleared waivers and been assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis, per Justice delos Santos of MLB.com. It’s unclear if Brice has accepted the assignment or elected free agency.

July 6: The Pirates have designated right-hander Austin Brice for assignment and optioned lefty Cam Vieaux to Triple-A Indianapolis, per a team announcement. That pair of moves creates space for right-hander Yerry De Los Santos to return from the Covid-related injured list and for newly acquired southpaw Manny Banuelos to be added to the active roster.

Brice spent a couple weeks in the majors, having been selected to the roster in late June. Signed to a minor league deal over the winter, the 30-year-old earned a brief look with a strong showing in Indianapolis. Across 26 2/3 innings, Brice posted a solid 3.04 ERA while striking out a lofty 27.2% of opposing hitters and inducing grounders on more than half the batted balls he allowed. Since adding him to the MLB staff, Pittsburgh has deployed him on only two occasions for low-leverage relief work.

While a limited look, that did mark Brice’s seventh consecutive year stepping onto a major league mound. He’s also played for the Marlins (a pair of separate stints), Reds and Red Sox. He’s typically racked up grounders at a solid clip and sports a fastball in the mid-90s, but he’s generally had issues keeping runs off the board at the highest level. Brice has allowed fewer than four earned runs per nine innings just once in a season, and he owns a 5.16 ERA through 165 2/3 career MLB innings.

The Pirates will presumably try to send Brice through waivers over the coming days. His quality Triple-A numbers may earn him a look from another team, but he is out of minor league option years. That means any team that claims him would have to keep him on their active roster or designate him for assignment themselves. Brice cleared outright waivers twice last season with Boston, meaning he’ll have the right to refuse an assignment back to Indianapolis in favor of minor league free agency if he goes unclaimed again.

Pirates Acquire Manny Banuelos

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Pirates’ general manager Ben Cherington has informed reporters, including Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic, that the club has acquired left-hander Manny Banuelos from the Yankees for cash considerations. No corresponding move will be necessary as the Pirates already had a vacancy on their 40-man roster.

Banuelos, 31, was in the Yankees’ system as far back as 2008, when he was just 17 years old. He was long-considered one of the best prospects in the system, appearing on Baseball America’s list of the top 30 Yankee youngsters for seven straight years from 2009 to 2015. That was despite missing the entirety of the 2013 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

In 2015, he was traded to Atlanta for David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve and made his MLB debut that year, though injuries limited him to just 26 1/3 innings. He then bounced around the minors for a few seasons, pitching in the systems of the Braves, Angels, Dodgers and White Sox. The Pale Hose gave him his second MLB opportunity, as Banuelos threw 50 2/3 innings for them in 2019, though he underwhelmed with a 6.93 ERA in that time.

In 2020 and 2021, he took his journeyman status to another level, signing with the Mariners, before joining the Fubon Guardians of the Chinese Professional Baseball League and then the Sultanes de Monterrey of the Mexican League.

In January, the Yankees signed him to a minor league deal, bringing him back to the organization where his career began. Banuelos pitched well in Triple-A, throwing 30 2/3 innings with a 2.35 ERA, 24.2% strikeout rate, 9.7% walk rate and 45.6% ground ball rate. Based on that strong performance, he finally got the call to join the Yankees after so many twists and turns.

He spent just over a month with the big league team, faring quite well in 8 1/3 innings. He has a 2.16 ERA on the season so far, along with a 22.9% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate and 62.5% ground ball rate in that small sample. Despite that solid showing, Banuelos lost his roster spot last week, likely due to the fact that he’s out of options.

Despite his long and winding career, Banuelos has only accrued about two years of MLB service time. That makes him a fairly sensible pickup for the Pirates. If he can sustain any of the promising results he’s shown so far this year, they can retain him well into the future, when they will surely hope to be more competitive than they are at the moment. He makes a lot of sense in the short term as well, given the club’s current bullpen situation. With Anthony Banda recently being DFA’d and traded to the Blue Jays, that left Cam Vieaux as the only southpaw in the club’s bullpen. The team leaned hard on Vieaux in mop-up duty recently, as he was sent out to pitch the eighth inning on Friday with the club down 9-1. The Pirates let him take a shellacking to save the rest of their arms, as he ended up throwing 56 pitches in a single inning of work, allowing eight runs (seven earned). The addition of Banuelos will give them a fresh arm from the south side to insert in their relief mix.

Yankees Designate Manny Banuelos For Assignment

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The Yankees announced Tuesday that they’ve designated left-hander Manny Banuelos for assignment and recalled fellow lefty JP Sears from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Now 31 years old, Banuelos inked a minor league deal with the Yankees back in March and finally made it to the Majors for the team for whom he was considered a top prospect for so many years. He’s pitched rather well in Pinstripes, too, notching a 2.16 ERA, a 22.9% strikeout rate, an 8.6% walk rate and a huge 62.5% ground-ball rate in a small sample of 8 1/3 innings out of the bullpen.

Despite that solid showing, the Yankees will turn that roster spot over to the younger Sears, who has been excellent both in the Majors (seven shutout innings) and in Triple-A so far this season (1.83 ERA, 50-to-6 K/BB ratio in 39 1/3 innings). At this point, there’s little denying that Sears has earned himself a more prominent look in the Majors, but it’s still at least a mild surprise that it came at the expense of Banuelos, given his solid showing thus far.

With Banuelos now off the 40-man roster, the Yankees will have a week to trade him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. Banuelos is out of minor league options and can’t be sent down without first clearing waivers — which surely played a role in today’s DFA — so any club who claims him or acquires him in a trade will need keep him on the active roster.

Yankees Sign Matt Carpenter To Major League Contract

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The Yankees announced they’ve signed Matt Carpenter to a big league contract. The veteran infielder had been granted his release from a minor league deal with the Rangers a week ago. Carpenter is a client of SSG Baseball.

New York also announced they’ve selected left-hander Manny Bañuelos onto the big league roster. The Yankees had optioned outfielder Estevan Florial and left-hander JP Sears to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to clear two active roster spots last night.

Carpenter was one of the game’s best hitters for a good portion of his tenure with the Cardinals. He posted above-average offensive numbers each season from 2012-18, earning a trio of All-Star selections along the way. He earned a Silver Slugger award in 2013 and twice finished in the top ten of NL MVP balloting. As recently as 2018, Carpenter had posted an excellent .257/.374/.523 slash line with 36 home runs.

Things have gone sharply downhill over the past few years, however. As he hit his mid-30’s, the left-handed hitter experienced a dramatic decline. Going back to the start of the 2019 season, Carpenter owns just a .203/.325/.346 mark in a bit more than 900 plate appearances. He’s continued to draw walks at a robust 13.3% clip, but that’s essentially been the only positive in his offensive game. He’s fanned in 27.9% of his plate appearances, posted a below-average .143 ISO (slugging minus batting average) and hit only .270 on balls in play.

St. Louis bought Carpenter out at the end of last season, and he was limited to minor league offers over the winter. The 36-year-old was forthright about the necessity of reinventing himself at the plate, and he chronicled some changes he’d made with Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic in February. The former TCU star signed a non-roster pact with the Rangers shortly after the lockout, and he’s shown some signs of a turnaround.

Through 21 games with Triple-A Round Rock, Carpenter put up a .275/.379/.613 showing. He hit six homers while continuing to draw plenty of free passes. Perhaps most encouragingly, he trimmed his strikeout rate to a lower than average 21.1%. Texas didn’t feel he had a path to playing time on the big league club, but the Yankees will give him the opportunity to try to carry over his strong work in the minors against MLB pitching.

Carpenter started exclusively at first base for Round Rock, but he has plenty of experience both at second and third base in the majors. He figures to see some time at all three spots in the Bronx, offering manager Aaron Boone a left-handed bat off the bench. The Yankees have Anthony Rizzo at first base, but right-handed hitters Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu and Josh Donaldson seeing action at the other positions.

LeMahieu hasn’t played in a couple days due to some left wrist discomfort, and designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton hit the injured list last night with ankle inflammation. Carpenter doesn’t have the defensive versatility of utilityman Marwin González, but he could offer a bit more punch at the plate. New York deployed Rougned Odor in a similar role last season.

As for Bañuelos, he’s back in the big leagues for the first time since 2019. The 31-year-old is set to make his first appearance in pinstripes, a debut many fans anticipated a decade ago when the southpaw was ranked among the Yankees’ top prospects. Unfortunately, he experienced some injury trouble on his way up the minor league ladder, and the Yankees dealt him to the Braves in advance of the 2015 season. Bañuelos made seven appearances with Atlanta as a rookie, then didn’t pitch in MLB again until a 16-game stint with the 2019 White Sox.

Between those two seasons, the Mexico native tossed 77 innings of 6.31 ERA ball. He spent a couple years out of affiliated ball, including a stint in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. Bañuelos returned stateside on a minor league deal with his original organization over the winter, and he’s earned his way back with a strong start in Scranton.

Over seven appearances (five starts) for the RailRiders, Bañuelos has a 2.35 ERA through 30 2/3 innings. He’s posted roughly average strikeout, walk and ground-ball marks and will presumably add a multi-inning arm to a bullpen mix that has lost Chad Green, Jonathan Loáisiga and Aroldis Chapman to injury recently.

The Yankees had two vacancies on their 40-man roster, so no additional move was necessary at the moment. Donaldson will require a 40-man spot whenever he’s ready to return from the COVID-19 injured list, however. Rob Brantly, recently designated for assignment, has cleared outright waivers and been assigned to Triple-A. The veteran has the right to refuse the assignment in favor of free agency, having been outrighted in the past.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Roster Notes: Twins, Marlins, Pirates, Yankees, Cubs, Phillies

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With the season just a few days away, roster decisions around the game continue to trickle in. We’ll round up some notable non 40-man roster decisions here.

    • Twins pitching prospect Jhoan Duran has made the Opening Day roster, per a club announcement. He’ll initially work out of the bullpen. Ranked the #9 prospect in the Minnesota organization by Baseball America, Duran draws praise for an upper-90s fastball and a power splitter that have helped him run plus strikeout rates throughout his minor league career.
    • The Marlins have informed outfielder Roman Quinn he will not make the Opening Day roster, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid (Twitter link). It comes as a bit of a surprise, as Quinn had seemed the favorite for a fourth outfield role after the Fish released Delino DeShields Jr. over the weekend. Presumably, that job will fall to utilityman Jon Berti early on.
    • Infield prospect Diego Castillo has made the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, tweets Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Castillo, acquired in the trade that sent righty Clay Holmes to the Yankees, will make his big league debut the first time he gets into a game.
    • The Yankees announced they’ve reassigned outfielder Ender Inciarte and left-hander Manny Bañuelos to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Inciarte has an opt-out clause in his minor league deal and tells ESPN’s Marly Rivera he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll accept the assignment to Triple-A.
    • The Cubs informed pitching prospect Ethan Roberts he’ll be on the Opening Day roster, he informed reporters (including Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). A fourth-round pick in 2018 out of Tennessee Tech, the right-hander is the #33 prospect in the organization according to Baseball America. The reliever posted an even 3.00 ERA over 54 innings between Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa last season. The Cubs reassigned non-roster invitees Jonathan Holder, Robert Gsellman, Steven Brault, Stephen Gonsalves and Ildemaro Vargas to Iowa, tweets Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
    • The Phillies reassigned non-roster invitees Ronald Torreyes, Yairo Muñoz and Dillon Maples to Triple-A Lehigh Valley, tweets Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Torreyes and Muñoz were competing for utility spots, while the hard-throwing Maples had been seeking a spot in the Philly bullpen.

 

Yankees Sign Ryan Weber, Manny Banuelos

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The Yankees recently signed righty Ryan Weber and southpaw Manny Bañuelos to minor league contracts, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. Both pitchers were minor league free agents, allowing them to sign non-roster deals during the ongoing transactions freeze.

Weber has pitched in the big leagues in each of the past seven years. The sinkerballer has worked in a swing capacity, starting 16 of his 63 appearances and tallying 167 cumulative innings. While he’s only punched out 14.9% of batters faced at the MLB level, Weber has demonstrated excellent control (5.4% walk rate) and racked up grounders on over half the balls in play against him.

The 31-year-old only made four MLB appearances last season, although they came with three different teams. He made one outing each with the Red Sox and Brewers and pitched in a pair of games for the Mariners. Weber spent the bulk of the year with those teams’ respective Triple-A affiliates, combining for 103 1/3 frames of 4.18 ERA ball with a minuscule 3.1% walk percentage in generally hitter-friendly settings.

While Weber has the more recent MLB run of the Yankees’ two new pitching additions, Bañuelos is probably the more familiar name to much of the fanbase. Added by the Yanks as an amateur out of Mexico during the 2008-09 signing period, Bañuelos fairly quickly developed into one of the sport’s top pitching prospects. Baseball America ranked the southpaw among the game’s top 50 overall farmhands entering both the 2011 and 2012 campaigns.

Unfortunately, Bañuelos’ progress was beset by injuries as he hit the high minors. He missed the entire 2013 season recovering from Tommy John surgery and wasn’t as effective upon returning. New York traded him to the Braves in advance of the 2015 season. Bañuelos debuted with seven appearances for Atlanta that year, then didn’t pitch in the majors again until 2019 with the White Sox.

Those two seasons mark his only big league experience to date. Across 77 innings, Bañuelos owns a 6.31 ERA with subpar strikeout and walk rates (17.7% and 12.6%, respectively). He’s spent the past two seasons pitching professionally in foreign leagues, appearing in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League and in the Mexican League. He’ll return to affiliated ball with his original organization in an attempt to get back to the majors for the first time in three years.

Manny Banuelos Signs With CPBL’s Fubon Guardians

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Left-hander Manny Banuelos has signed a deal with the Fubon Guardians of the Chinese Professional Baseball League, according to several reports out of Mexico (hat tip to the CPBL Stats website).  Banuelos had most recently been a member of the Mariners organization, before Seattle released him from his minor league contract at the start of June.

2019 marked Banuelos’ return to the majors, after he hadn’t pitched in the Show since tossing 26 1/3 innings as a rookie for Atlanta in 2015.  Those interim years saw Banuelos bounce from the Braves to the Angels to the Dodgers before being dealt to the White Sox in November 2018.  Banuelos tossed 50 2/3 innings for Chicago last season, starting eight of 16 appearances and posting a 6.93 ERA, 1.33 K/BB rate, and 7.8 K/9.

Once a very highly touted prospect coming up in the Yankees’ farm system, Banuelos’ career has been stalled by injuries (particularly a Tommy John surgery that kept him from pitching in 2013) and a lack of consistency at Triple-A, let alone during his brief Major League career.  Still only 29 years old, Banuelos will now head to the New Taipei City-based Guardians to try and carve out a niche for himself in the CPBL.  Chin-lung Hu, Henry Sosa, and Fu-Te Ni are other former big leaguers also playing on Fubon’s roster.

Mariners Release Manny Banuelos

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The Mariners recently released left-hander Manny Banuelos, according to the Pacific Coast League transactions page. Banuelos only spent a few months with the Mariners, who signed him to a minors pact near the beginning of February.

Now 29 years old, Banuelos ranked as one of the sport’s premier pitching prospects while part of the Yankees’ farm system. Banuelos topped out as Baseball America’s 29th-best farmhand in 2012, though injuries – including Tommy John surgery – have played a part in preventing him from realizing his potential.

Although his career hasn’t turned out as hoped so far, Banuelos is at least coming off a year in which he racked up a solid amount of innings as a member of the White Sox. He totaled 50 2/3 frames over 16 appearances (eight starts), though Banuelos could only notch a 6.93 ERA/6.57 FIP with 7.82 K/9 and 5.86 BB/9. It was his first major league action since a 26 1/3-inning run with the Braves in 2015, when he pitched to a 5.13 ERA. But Banuelos has been far better in Triple-A, as his 3.98 ERA with 8.4 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 over 396 frames demonstrates.

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